If you are planning to attend a few festivals and sports events this year, you may have noticed that this nation is profoundly lacking when it comes to organising niche events.
Those of us who never won the egg and spoon race in first class or captained the junior B hurlers to victory are still hoping to step on to a winners’ podium some day. However, we know our limitations and that’s why we might excel at some obscure challenges.
Perhaps you have an undiscovered knack for flinging fish? We may be surrounded by water, but you won’t be able to showcase that skill on this island.
Fear not. In April you can head to a beach on the Florida-Alabama border to take part in the Flora-Bama Interstate Mullet Toss. This involves competitors standing on the Florida side of the beach and throwing a dead mullet across the state line into Alabama.
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Last year’s winner managed to throw the fish more than 3.5 metres. The knack is to fold the fish first. Despite the fact that I’ve never had occasion to either fold, or fling, a fish, I firmly believe that record is beatable.
This island of ours is populated with stones, as any fan of Patrick Kavanagh will tell you, yet we are utterly useless when it comes to organising stone-skimming contests. Luckily for us, the World Stone Skimming Championships are held in September on the tiny Scottish island of Easdale, which has a particularly bountiful cache of perfect stones. Competitors are allowed three skims, but stones must bounce at least twice on water before sinking.
Unfortunately, the world of competitive stone skimming was rocked by scandal last year. Some entrants had doctored their stones to ensure they were more circular and would therefore travel further. But don’t let that nefarious activity put you off – the organisers have promised that lessons have been learned and this year’s contest will run as smoothly as the stones being skimmed.
American competitor Jonathan Jennings took the trophy last year. Happily, the World Stone Skimming Championships is not on his president’s radar, so Donald Trump did not try to relieve him of the trophy to put alongside the Nobel Peace Prize medal. Sometimes it’s good to be involved in an obscure sport.
We Irish are always being told that we could charm the birds from the trees, so surely we should have an edge when it comes to charming the worms from the soil?
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And conveniently for us, the World Worm Charming Championships will be held in the English village of Willaston in Cheshire in June. Worm charming uses vibrations or music to lure the creatures from the soil. Entrants are allowed to stick a garden fork into the ground and vibrate it to encourage the worms to rise, but no stimulants such as water are allowed.
No worms are harmed in this gentle activity as they are all returned to the soil once the birds have gone to roost on the evening of the event.
If you fancy your chances, you should know that the existing Guinness World Record is held by Sophie Smith who charmed a whopping 567 worms within 30 minutes.
As we live in the spiritual home of the potato, you would expect we should be the world leader in potato-themed competitive events, but we have a lot of work to do to catch up with our friends in the US.
Irish eyes should look towards Clark, South Dakota, for inspiration as this is the number one destination when it comes to mashed potato wrestling. Grappling in a pit of cold instant mashed potato might not sound appealing, but surely our affinity with the spud should give us an edge when it comes to predicting how the bed of mashed potato is going to react when one is being held in a figure-four leg lock?
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But if you don’t fancy picking potato out of your ears, then relax. Ireland does have one – nay, two – niche events coming up. The Irish Jigsaw Puzzle Association is holding its first jigsaw competition in the ALSAA Sports Centre in Dublin on March 7th.
The event was quickly sold out when it was announced and more than 150 hopeful competitors are on the waiting list. The jigsaw evangelists are encouraging spectators to come along and peer under the lid of this growing movement.
It might encourage you to take part in the inaugural Irish Jigsaw Puzzle Championship, which will be held later this year. It will feature this country’s prime puzzler Emma Quirke, who has already won the UK and Portuguese championships.
The primary school teacher also came ninth in the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Spain last year. Could she leave the opposition in pieces?
